


kiss like ice

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: (kinda), Curse Breaking, Curses, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Style, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Reincarnation, Supernatural Elements, True Love's Kiss, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:55:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21687928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Once, he dreams, there was a father.Only ever a father, sitting on the disused throne, glowing under a golden crown.Once, winter lasted but a few months, and then the world was soft colors bleeding into bright warmth, before fading into the browns and reds that signaled a new winter.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 112
Collections: WinterKnights 2019 - a Merlin Winter/Holiday Fest





	kiss like ice

The castle is beautiful, with its crumbling stones and thick windows and high towers. Beautiful, but lonely and cold. For as long as Arthur has roamed these dusty halls, it has been him and Gaius and Alice alone. 

Once, he dreams, there was a father. 

Only ever a father, sitting on the disused throne, glowing under a golden crown. 

Once, winter lasted but a few months, and then the world was soft colors bleeding into bright warmth, before fading into the browns and reds that signaled a new winter.

Gaius tells him that is the stuff of legends and dreams, and theirs has always been a world of eternal blizzard. 

“You’re wrong,” Arthur pouts into his porridge.  _ He _ can sometimes feel the phantom kiss of a summer sun, turning his pallid skin gold. “It’s the ice-boy’s fault,” he adds.

Alice sucks in a breath, eyes tight and hand on her chest. “Arthur, honey. I thought we were beyond those fantasies.” 

Arthur kicks at the legs of the table, staring sullenly into the courtyard. 

He didn’t make up the lies about the icy statue in the courtyard. He didn’t  _ dream _ them to fill his lonely world. 

But he dutifully mumbles, “Yes, Alice,” and shovels more flavorless mush into his mouth.

-

The rule is, no one is allowed near the ice-boy. No touching or staring or… or anything.

Arthur has never been one for rules, and when he is able to sneak away from his lessons and his guardians, he drags a large pallet of softwood and a blanket, and lies beneath the boy’s outstretched arm.

Arthur stares into the distance, trying to see beyond the white swirls, to seek what the boy reaches for. 

“Are you sad?” He asks.

The wind always sighs in answer, and Arthur pats the ankle he can reach. “It’s okay, I’m lonely too.”

Sometimes, very rarely, Arthur  _ swears _ the ice turns to skin, pale as snow and cold, but soft. 

Once, when he stood in the boy’s face and scowled, the empty eyes flickered first blue, and then gold. 

Arthur ran then, ran as fast as he could in the drifts of white curse, the wind pressing against him.

-

“How did he get there?” Arthur asks Gaius once.

Gaius is easily distracted when playing with dried roots, and so he answers, “I suppose he was here when we arrived.”

“But he must’ve come from somewhere,” Arthur insist.

“I suppose all children do,” Gaius answers sadly. Then he blinks, and remembers where he is and who he is with and he waves a soaping wooden spoon at Arthur. Mucky green potion sprays everywhere as Gaius reprimands him. “He was here before we were, and you shouldn’t pry into it, Arthur.”

-

There are books in the library. Thick, dusty tomes bound in leather, written in so many languages it makes Arthur’s headache. 

But he spends many candles in there trying to learn. He’s a poor student, but eventually the scratch marks shift into something like letters, and Arthur reads.

This castle is old, older than he and Gaius and Alice combined. But the boy-made-of-ice is older still. The castle was built behind him, the courtyard around him. 

Supposedly, people tried to  _ move  _ the boy. 

Arthur snorts to himself, “Stubborn oaf.”

None of the text tell Arthur where he came from, but a few of them talk about the grave he points too.

> _ The lake, long since dried up, revealed a single sword of superior craftsmanship, wrapped in a cloak surprisingly well preserved. Though the crest is not immediately recognized, the dragon emblem was said to have contained traces of real gold. It is hard to date the sword or the cape, because age would suggest a time in which the tools simply did not exist to craft things of such quality. Given the cloak’s red coloring and actual gold, one might have assumed the cloak was of modern making. And yet the stitching, clearly done with thread that has not existed for centuries and a needle of low quality give the impression of something ancient.  _
> 
> _ Of course, neither of these were as amazing as the discovery of the crown, true gold and clearly handmade. Arthurian in era, supposedly. _

There are no illustrations, but Arthur can still see the items with perfect clarity, can almost feel their weight on his head, his hip, and his shoulders. 

He leaves, when the tomes provide no further explanation. 

-

_ Arthur _ .

Arthur jerks up with a gasp, drenched in sweat and reaching for something. For a long breath, his fingertips feel warm, staticky, like he’d brushed them against something. Someone. 

But his room is empty, drafty, and when he peers out the window, the ice-boy is unmoved. 

Arthur returns to sleep, shivering for reasons other than the everlasting storm.

-

The…

Not a nightmare. 

Not a dream. 

Whatever it is, goes on for several nights. 

Arthur always wakes up, feeling as though he has run for years, sweat damp and chasing after the feel of someone else’s palms. 

Occasionally, he wakes up fast enough to see dark hair and blue eyes. 

Red lips.

Pale skin marred by the most beautiful marks. 

Ridiculous ears. 

He’s so exhausted by it, Alice and Gaius fret over him. Afraid he is coming down ill, despite his lack of fever. 

“I’m fine,” he mumbles over flavorless stew. “I’m fine.” 

-

When he falls asleep over hard honey cakes, Alice brews a tea guaranteed to chase away dreams and induce a long sleep. 

Arthur takes it willingly, if only because he is so tired the very act of lifting his head off the table seems too much.

When he dreams that night, despite the tea, he does not wake.

The boy in the yard slowly unfreezes, in a painful looking process that starts at his ankle and moves slower than than the stars in the sky. He screams with the warmth over taking him, and Arthur tries to reach out. Like he imagined, the boy’s eyes are a blue so deep Arthur is lost in them, and his hair is an inky, turbulent storm. 

“Merlin!” he cries into the void, but the wind howling around them steals the word away. “Merlin,” Arthur screams, until his voice is raw and his cheeks are wet with salt and the boy is curled around a red cloak, sobbing but thawed.

-

Arthur wakes, and his throat aches like his screams were true and his eyes are swollen. His head aches, and when Gaius and Alice declare him sick, he doesn’t tell them it is only of his heart.

“Tell me of the boy in the ice,” he begs. “Tell me where he comes from.”

Perhaps it is his fever, or his tears, or the way his teeth won’t quiet.

Perhaps it is his palm, frosted blue like he shook hands with winter. 

Alice tells him, “The boy was here when we arrived. And he was here before the castle, but he has not always been here.’

Gaius takes his wife’s hand as she continues. “No one is quite certain where the boy came from, only that when he came, the lake dried up and the world got very, very cold. Before, when there was a town here, they feared him. They said he could do many mighty, but unholy things. He simply cast his hands out and the earth split, and butterflies danced, and fire sang.”

Gaius shudders. “The town was not prepared for a boy like that, nor for the bargain he supposedly made with those who once kept the lake full.”

Alice strokes his damp, hot cheek. “Supposedly, there really was a king buried in the lake. The ice-boy had waited a very long time for him to rise up, and when it seemed he never would, he made a bargain.”

“And what was it?” Arthur demanded. “What did the idiot bargain for?”

Gaius answers him sadly, suddenly looking so very old to Arthur. “He traded everything he was so the king might rise. He meant only his magic, but the lake-dwellers were tricky.”

“Is he like that forever?” Arthur asks, voice wobbly. 

“No one knows, darling,” Alice says. 

Arthur wants to ask more questions, but Alice looks as though she might weep, might break. Gaius pats her hand and then tucks him in. He kisses Arthur’s forehead. “Sleep, my boy. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

-

When he dreams that night, the world is empty black space filled with white snow and a desperate voice. “Merlin,” he cries again and again. “How do I save you?”

There is no answer.

-

The dreams stop after that, and Arthur stops seeking an answer. Gaius and Alice seem to suddenly age, backs hunched and hands withered. The cold grows violent, seeps into their bones and their teeth and turns them blue and blue and blue. 

When Arthur aches to move, and Alice is trapped by the fire beneath a quilt, and Gauis cannot stir his potions, Arthur grows angry.

He stalks into the library and throws the tomes about, for their useless, empty pages. He flips the cauldrons and roots to the floor, stomps on the candles that do not warm.

He storms his way out to that blasted statue and stares at it, chest heaving, fire growing within him.

The boy, this stupid ice statue that has ruined his life, seems almost to weep. 

“Do not mock me,” Arthur hisses. He places his hand to the statue’s chest, pushes like he might send the thing toppling over. 

He is surprised then, to watch the ice puddle beneath his hand. Shocked, to see a shirt of fine blue cloth begin to rustle. 

Arthur places a hand at the statues hip, and water begins to flow freely, until he can feel trousers beneath his palm, soft but sound, brown in color. 

Like a child with a new toy, Arthur runs his hands over the statue; he reveals a pale hand with well trimmed nails, dusty black boots. A rusack of fine brown leather and an outrageously stupid bright red neckerchief. 

He touches the boy’s hair, and like he dreamed it up, inky, turbulent locks soften under his hands.

He touches the nose, trails his fingers over a sharp cheek, over dusk-lashes and blue-gold eyes. He kisses the lips, warm and chapped and so very alive under his own.

The ice-boy, who is now human, wraps his skinny arms around Arthur, and their kiss taste like winter mint and like salt. 

“It took you long enough,” Merlin says. 

“Shut up, you idiot,” Arthur replies. 

They do not notice the grass sprouting beneath their heels, as they kiss again. Nor do they see the trail of flowers as they hold hands back to the castle. 

Alice sees the butterflies though, when Arthur nervously introduces his ice-boy.


End file.
